The Silver Stain am-4 Read online

  ‘You know who this is,’ said a gruff voice.

  ‘Do I?’ Mavros replied. ‘The Prime Minister? The ghost of Maria Callas with a bad cold?’

  ‘As funny as ever — you think.’ Nikos Kriaras, head of the Athens police organized crime division, was a man with no humour in his soul. ‘I have little time for this, so listen carefully. You will shortly have visitors. It would be a very good idea to take the job you will be offered. A very good idea indeed.’

  ‘I’ve had bad experience of your good ideas,’ Mavros said, immediately antagonistic to anything suggested by the well connected but less than straight cop.

  ‘Tell me why I should do what you say.’

  Kriaras sighed. ‘Why are things never easy with you? All right, this is nothing to do with my current portfolio.’ The commander was terrified of phone taps and habitually spoke in a clipped mode he thought would be incomprehensible to outsiders. ‘My friends at the Concert Hall would like your input on this.’ A child could have broken that codename. Next to the main Athens music venue was the American embassy.

  ‘Oh, great,’ Mavros said, remembering a case involving the Americans and a terrorist that had nearly cost him his life. ‘I think I’d rather take in the May sunshine on my balcony, thanks.’

  ‘Don’t screw with me, smart-arse,’ Kriaras said. ‘Take the job. It’ll be well paid, it’s not dangerous and you’ll meet interesting people.’

  The truth was that Mavros hadn’t had a case in two weeks and was as bored as a shark in the overfished Aegean. Not that he was going to tell the cop that.

  ‘Well, I’ll think about it,’ he said languorously. ‘That sun, you know, it’s very-’

  ‘Take the fucking job, all right?’ yelled Kriaras, slamming down the old-style phone that Mavros had seen in his office.

  ‘Who was that?’ the Fat Man asked, his heavy face creased with curiosity.

  ‘Just one of my many admirers.’

  ‘That wanker Kriaras.’

  Mavros laughed. ‘Very good, Yiorgo. He says I’m about to be offered a job. A good one.’

  The Fat Man flicked his dish-towel at a fly with surprising dexterity. ‘Don’t take it. You can’t trust that murderous organ of the state further than you can-’

  ‘Toss him? Jesus, Yiorgo, lighten up with the Party terminology. Besides, we could do with some income.’

  ‘Income? Profit, you mean. You’re as bad as everyone else in this benighted country. Take what you can and deprive the needy.’

  Mavros led the Fat Man to one of his mother’s antique armchairs. ‘Now, now, don’t get overexcited. You might burst — I don’t know — a belly?’

  The doorbell rang, meaning that Mavros escaped verbal and possibly physical abuse. He looked at the miniature screen and saw a man in his late thirties, his thinning hair in a ponytail, and a young woman. Both were dressed in high-end casual clothes and the latter was carrying a laptop case. Although the man could have passed for Greek, the woman’s red hair and pale skin gave her away as a foreigner. Mavros decided to speak English.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘Mr Mavros? We were told to contact you by a Mr Kriaras.’ The man mangled the stress on the cop’s name — it should have been on the final syllable — and his accent was American.

  ‘Come up to the sixth floor.’

  Mavros turned to the Fat Man. ‘You’d better make yourself scarce. Sit in the kitchen and take notes if that turns you on.’

  ‘What if they want coffee?’

  ‘I’ll give you the order like you’re a Filipina and collect it myself. All right, Georgia?’

  The Fat Man gave him a less than threatening glare — there were few things he liked better than overhearing Mavros’s clients — and withdrew.

  Mavros went to the door, wondering what kind of fine mess he was about get himself into.

  The young woman was now standing in front of the man.

  ‘Alex Mavros?’ she asked, with an accent that was East Coast, unlike the man’s Californian tones. ‘My name’s Alice Quincy. It’s my privilege and pleasure to introduce you to Mr Luke Jannet.’

  The second name rang a faint bell, but Mavros played dumb. ‘Right,’ he said, extending a hand to the man, who had now pushed himself to the front, and then to the woman. ‘Come in.’

  ‘Cool place,’ Jannet said, walking into the open living area. ‘Kinda old-style furnishings, though.’

  Mavros shrugged. ‘Care to park your backsides on that antique sofa?’ He’d never liked being talked down to and he wasn’t going to make an exception for this hotshot. There were spots of red on Alice Quincy’s high cheekbones, which made him perversely happy. She was one of those tall women with flat chests known to Greeks as ‘ironing-boards’, but her face was attractive enough.

  ‘Would you like something to drink?’ Mavros asked, watching Luke Jannet. He hadn’t shown any sign of being affronted, but there was a watchfulness in his green eyes that suggested he didn’t miss much.

  ‘Coffee for us both,’ Jannet said. ‘Alice can make it.’

  ‘That won’t be necessary. Georgia?’

  The Fat Men squeaked from behind the partially open kitchen door.

  ‘Coffee for two, please.’ Mavros looked at the Americans. ‘Cappuccino?’

  They both nodded.

  Mavros repeated the order, aware that Yiorgos would be swearing under his breath — his mother had bought a machine and the Fat Man knew how to operate it, but he regarded the frothy concoction as an abomination.

  ‘So, what can I do for you?’ Mavros asked, deliberately directing his gaze at the young woman.

  ‘See, here’s the problem,’ Jannet said, leaning forwards. Pointed cowboy boots made of some exotic skin extended from his dark-blue chinos. ‘I’m directing a movie down in Crete.’

  The bell rang louder in Mavros’s head, but he kept silent.

  Alice Quincy couldn’t contain herself any longer. ‘Surely you’ve heard of Mr Jannet and the film? It’s been all over the media.’

  ‘I don’t really follow the film world,’ Mavros lied. He was a big fan of classic noir and modern crime movies, but he suspected Jannet didn’t direct that kind of thing.

  ‘Freedom or Death?’ the young woman persisted. ‘About the Battle of Crete in 1941?’

  ‘Captain Corelli meets Zorba the Greek, with a touch of Cross of Iron,’ Luke Jannet interposed. ‘It’ll be out in time for the Olympics and it’ll make a mint.’

  Mavros had read about the production without paying attention to who was directing it. The Greek Ministry of Culture had been prominent in its efforts to attract a big budget American movie that would put Greece even more in the global eye in 2004. The fact that ‘Freedom or Death’ was the motto of the modern Greek state hadn’t put off any politicians except extreme nationalists from licensing it to Hollywood.

  ‘Kind of a new version of Ill Met by Moonlight?’ Mavros said, remembering the Dirk Bogarde movie about the kidnapping of a German general on Crete.

  ‘What?’ Jannet asked, his expression blank.

  ‘Mr Mavro?’ came a high voice from the kitchen.

  He went to collect the coffees. ‘I hope you didn’t spit in them,’ he whispered.

  The Fat Man was a dogged anti-American, as were all the comrades, and he regarded film-makers as the cream on the cake of worker exploitation.

  ‘No, but that can be arranged,’ Yiorgos riposted.

  ‘Let’s wait and see what the job is,’ Mavros said, grabbing the tray.

  The Americans watched curiously as he handed over their cups and saucers.

  ‘My maid’s a bit shy,’ he said. ‘She was abused in her last position.’

  ‘How awful,’ Alice said, glancing towards the kitchen.

  ‘Here’s the thing,’ Jannet said, ignoring her. ‘I’ve got an actress — in fact, the female lead — who’s giving me the runaround. Cara Parks? Don’t tell me you haven’t heard of her?’

  Mavros wasn’t going to play
that dumb. Cara Parks was the next big thing in Hollywood, combining the physical allure of Kate Winslet with the smouldering looks of Sharon Stone.

  ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘I saw her in Spring Surprise.’ The low-budget horror movie set in a machine factory had given the actress plenty of opportunities to exercise both her vocal chords and her stunning body.

  ‘That was nothing,’ Jannet said scathingly. ‘Freedom or Death is going to make her into a global star.’

  ‘OK,’ Mavros said. ‘And what’s her problem?’

  ‘Tell him, Alice,’ the director said, as if the details were beneath him.

  ‘Yes, Mr Jannet.’ The young woman looked at Mavros. ‘Like all actors in major roles, Ms Parks has a personal assistant, in her case a woman called Maria Kondos.’

  ‘A Greek-American?’ Mavros asked. The surname for a female would have been Kondou if she’d been a Greek native.

  Alice Quincy nodded. ‘The problem is, Maria disappeared yesterday and no one has any idea where she is.’

  Jannet put his empty cup down with a crack. ‘And Cara Parks, the self-centred bitch, won’t do anything until she’s found. She won’t even come out of her suite.’

  Mavros wasn’t attracted to the case. The Greek-American had probably had a row with the star and gone voluntarily AWOL. Kriaras obviously wanted him on the job because of the production’s significance to the country and the Culture Ministry, not necessarily in that order.

  ‘We’re prepared to pay you two thousand euros per day plus expenses,’ Alice Quincy said.

  Mavros heard a stifled exclamation from the kitchen. Years of extracting money from unsuspecting tourists who had wandered into the cafe had given the Fat Man a good command of numbers in English, and Mavros’s standard rate was 500 euros a day.

  ‘What’s more,’ Luke Jannet said, ‘we’ve got a limo waiting in the street and a Learjet at the airport.’ He caught Mavros’s eye. ‘You coming? We gotta haul ass.’

  Mavros thought about it for a couple of seconds. Niki would be pissed off, but she’d approve of the money. The Fat Man would sulk because he wasn’t coming along. Tough.

  ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Give me a few seconds to toss some things in a bag.’

  TWO

  From The Descent of Icarus:

  I hit a piece of rough open ground very hard. It was the worst landing I’d ever made, but I hadn’t broken anything and I told myself to keep calm. Small arms fire came at me from the east and I could hear shouts from my comrades across the dry river-bed. I used the gravity knife to cut away my parachute and then the first of the Cretans was on me. He wasn’t much more than a boy and he came at me with a rock held in both hands. I twisted out of the way, still on my knees, then a spray of blood came from his forehead and he crashed to the flower-dotted earth.

  ‘Over here, Rudi!’

  I saw Peter Wachter crouching behind an olive tree, replacing the magazine of his MP40. The motionless bodies of the Cretans I had seen from the air were between us. I looked to my right. A weapons canister was dangling from an olive tree about fifty metres away, the lower end close to the ground. I pointed at it.

  ‘No!’ Peter yelled. ‘You’ll never make it!’

  Bullets flew past me, proving his point. Although the sky was full of Luftwaffe aircraft — Auntie Jus dropping men, 109s strafing gun emplacements — I was on my own, caught in clear ground. I wouldn’t last long with only my short-range machine-pistol and my Luger. I started crawling towards the tree, the first of a row. Earth and stones were flung into my face by gunfire, pinging against my helmet. Already my throat was parched and my stomach filled with acid. My training drove me on — the often-repeated words about sacrificing everything for the unit’s greater good, the insignificance of my own life compared with the paratroopers’ ultimate victory. Then I saw two of my comrades. One had landed in the tree beyond the canister, a line of large, bloody holes almost cutting him in half. The other was lying face down on the ground, arms still outstretched and parachute in rags, obviously hit by an anti-aircraft shell not long after it opened.

  I stopped behind a low furrow in the earth to catch my breath. Fire was still being directed at me from the heights above the airfield and I had to press on. Then I caught a glimpse of rapid movement to my left. I rolled on to my right side, levelling the MP40. What I saw made my heart stop. A young woman dressed in black was running towards me, her long skirt flapping and her raven hair streaming behind her. She was screaming like a banshee, an old-fashioned rifle raised to her shoulder. There was a puff of smoke then a loud report and a heavy round smashed into the earth a few centimetres in front of my chest. Reloading was obviously not an option for her, but she kept charging, the rifle now reversed with the butt towards me.

  I knew I had to kill her, but I couldn’t. For all the savagery in her expression and her glaring eyes, she was beautiful and so young. I loosed off a blast above her head, which did nothing to stop her. The sound of firing all around had disappeared and all I could hear was her gasping breath and the words — clearly full of hatred — that she was shrieking at me. I fired again. She was so close that I couldn’t fail to hit her. The ancient rifle flew from her grip and she crashed to the earth, clutching her shoulder. I crept over to her and she spat in my face. That was enough. I turned my attention back to the weapons canister. Just before I reached it, a grenade exploded in the tree and I was showered by branches, which reduced the force of the shrapnel.

  Stretching up, I cut the shrouds from the canister and it dropped to the ground. It had been damaged and wouldn’t open. I heard a burst of MP40 fire and turned to see another group of Cretans — old men in black jodhpurs and tasselled headscarves, and boys in shorts — crash to the earth. I pulled out my bayonet and inserted the blade in the canister catch. At last it sprang open and I found what I wanted — an air-cooled MG34 with a bipod and plenty of ammunition. I took a good position behind a tree trunk and set up the weapon facing the open ground. Another group of Cretans was advancing towards me, but that wasn’t the first of my problems — it wasn’t even the second.

  The young woman I had shot was on her feet again and charging me, the rifle raised with her good arm, while behind me I saw heavily-built figures slipping through the rows of trees, wearing battledress and slope hats. They were the enemy I least wanted to face. They were the New Zealand Maoris.

  Mavros managed a whispered conversation with the Fat Man in the kitchen, asking him to keep the plants watered if he was delayed.

  ‘What about your girlfriend?’ Yiorgos asked, smiling slackly.

  ‘Call her and tell her I’ve left her for a willowy American.’ Mavros shook his head. ‘Don’t even think about it. I’ll talk to her. And she’s not my girlfriend, she’s the woman of my life.’

  The Fat Man looked like he was going to vomit. ‘Keep in touch, young Alex,’ he said. ‘Maybe you’ll need a sidekick down there. You know how nasty the Cretans can be.’

  In your dreams, Mavros thought. The last time Yiorgos had got involved in a case, he nearly ended up dead.

  ‘Let’s go, fella,’ Luke Jannet called from the saloni. ‘I’ve got a scene to shoot this afternoon.’

  Mavros picked up the small bag he’d filled. Travelling light was essential to him, even if it meant buying clothes — they could always be put on expenses. He made sure he had his laptop and his phone charger. Niki had a tendency to punish him severely if he was out of touch for more than a day.

  ‘So what’s your story, man?’ Jannet asked, after they had crowded into the small lift.

  Mavros looked at him. He was pretty sure Kriaras had passed over the salient details, but for 2000 Euros a day, his client deserved a mini-biography.

  ‘Father Greek, mother Scottish. Degree in law and criminology from Edinburgh, worked in the Ministry of Justice here, set myself up as a missing persons investigator nine years ago. Never failed to find a misper.’

  Jannet raised an eyebrow. ‘Never failed, huh? That’s what your cop fr
iend said. How d’you do that? Keep away from the real hard cases?’

  Mavros had already decided that the director was a dick — the kind of powerful man who got a kick out of needling his minions. ‘I can’t talk about previous cases — client confidentiality. You got that in the States?’

  Alice Quincy’s eyes sprang open, then she looked down in embarrassment.

  ‘Yeah, we got that. We got smart-arses too and I don’t like them. Watch yourself, Alex Mavros.’

  They went out into the sunlight. A long black Mercedes was blocking the street, a chauffeur in a grey suit standing by the rear door.

  A leather-clad man on a powerful motorbike tried to squeeze past the car unsuccessfully. He flipped up his visor and started cursing; something along the lines of rich masturbators being the ruin of Greece.

  ‘Excuse me,’ Mavros said, stepping towards him. On the long list of Athenian pains in the arse, he placed motorbike riders near the top. ‘Have you any idea who you’re yelling at?’

  ‘Should I?’ the biker demanded, his belligerence undiluted. ‘Looks like a pimp with his latest tart to me.’

  Mavros laughed. ‘I’ll be decent and not pass that on. No, that’s Luke Jannet, the director of Freedom or Death.’ It was immediately obvious that leather man had heard about the film. ‘He was telling me he needed experienced bikers as extras to ride replica German machines.’ He smiled tightly. ‘Looks like you’ve completely blown that gig.’

  ‘What did you say to him?’ Jannet asked, after Mavros had got into the front seat.

  ‘Don’t worry, your name didn’t come up,’ Mavros lied. He saw no reason to keep his client informed about anything not directly related to Maria Kondos.

  The driver knew his job and soon they were heading out of the centre on Mesogeion Avenue. Jannet and Alice Quincy were on their mobiles, talking intently, so Mavros decided to make his own calls.

  ‘Hello, Mother.’

  ‘Alex, dear.’ Dorothy Cochrane-Mavrou’s voice was weaker than it had been, but she was still in full command of her intellect. ‘Are you coming to Kifissia?’